2023-06-27 17:15:00
Cross-Channel relations are heating up. This Tuesday, British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt and his counterpart, European Commissioner Mairead McGuiness, are due to sign a cooperation agreement between their two geopolitical entities. The aim is to establish a constructive, mutually beneficial relationship between the UK and the EU in financial services said the British Treasury.
Financial services: why is dialogue between financial departments and information systems departments essential?
For the time being, the collaboration will only consist of exchanging information and coordinating positions and priorities for major international meetings. As for a ” passport » or equivalences initially hoped for by the sector before Brexit which would make it possible to operate in the EU, a huge market at the gates of the United Kingdom, they are not relevant.
The importance of such cooperation
Cet accord (memorandum of understanding) « is an important step in post-Brexit relations between the UK and the EU “Estimates the Treasury. The British institution continues by recalling that British financial services, engines of the economy across the Channel, weighed 11,000 billion pounds (12,790 billion euros) in 2020, of which 44% on behalf of international customers including from the EU.
For Chris Hayward, director of policy for the City of London (the advocacy body for London’s financial district, and by extension one of the sector’s spokespersons in the country), the co-operation agreement “lays the of a new era of cooperation with our EU partners”. It “will help UK financial services to re-engage in productive discussions with the EU, for the benefit of both our economies”, he continued.
Brexit: “a blow to the financial services” of the City
An unfinished prior agreement
In 2021, London and Brussels had already concluded a similar cooperation agreement. A few months before, when the exit from the European Union had become effective, financial services had undergone a Brexit “ dur while the goods had been the subject of a free trade agreement. However, the 2021 deal was never signed due to disagreements over the application of post-Brexit trade deals in Northern Ireland. These disputes were resolved in March 2023 by the conclusion of the “ Cadre de Windsor intended to facilitate the movement of goods within the United Kingdom by avoiding any physical border with Northern Ireland, which remains in the single European market.
In 2020, the UK wanted to follow its own rules
At that time, Sajid Javid, the British Minister for Finance, recalled that leaving the EU was an opportunity for the United Kingdom to regain control of the regulation of financial services: “ We will no longer follow the rules set by others ».
He added that the UK and EU needed to agree on a level playing field regime by June 2020, to limit disruption once the transition period was completed at the end of the year. According to the Minister, each party was to assign equivalences only if it believed that the opposite regulations were compatible. ” But compatible does not mean identical “, he had specified.
In response to City’s concerns about the fragility of the equivalence system, reversible at any time, Sajid Javid assured that he wanted ” setting standards and ways of working with the EU for decades to come “in order to build” a lasting relationship with Brussels.
(with AFP)
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